[disintegore]

> They did get the credit, just not for the code, and rightly so.

They received credit for reporting the issue, which is a fraction of what they did. They provided the entire solution, full stop. The maintainer only restated it.

[jacquesm]

That's because it is a tiny fix. To ask for credit as a contributor makes it seem as though that was the whole goal and that's why the OP feels 'robbed' as though this is a thing of great value that has been taken away from them.

That's not how I interpret the contents of the exchange:

https://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/m...

Could the kernel maintainer have handled this better? Probably yes. Was the OP robbed? In my opinion, no, their work was credited and the fix is so small it doesn't warrant elevating the OP to 'Kernel contributor' which is typically reserved for more substantial contributions, not bug fixes of a few lines.

Another comment has a nice middle ground in the form of the 'Suggested-by' tag which I think would have been an improvement. I've got a little project on the go and I'm meticulous about crediting people but the context is entirely different there, nobody is going to hold up my project to claim they are a contributor on their CV so I'm fine with the kernel maintainers keeping the list of 'kernel contributors' manageable.

[phendrenad2]

I don't know if you've been in the open-source space for very long, because this is not how it works. It's pretty standard to work very hard to give credit (and not some silly "reporter" credit) to the first person to show up with a working patch for an issue (as long as they are willing to work with the maintainers and make requested changes), because it builds goodwill in the community and encourages contributions. Of course, the kernel maintainers are free to break that social compact, but it's still "robbing" someone of what social norms lead one to expect. And this "robbery" isn't a victimless act, either. Finding a high-complexity (and it was, don't confuse yourself) issue and solving it is a good undertaking that shows that you're a good developer, and also brings some spotlight to the company you represent, which can be good for recruiting and developer relations.

Source: I have asked this question on HN before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31225599

[camgunz]

IDK this stuff all sounds specious to me. If I envision a world where anyone who contributes Miculas' level of effort into the kernel gets into "kernel contributors", that world seems great to me. Linus wrote a whole new version control system, surely someone over there can figure out how to maintain a list of contributors.

> To ask for credit as a contributor makes it seem as though that was the whole goal

There's nothing, at all, wrong with this.

[mfru]

After how many lines of someone contributing code to the kernel are they considered to be a >kernel contributor<?

How is fixing bugs not a contribution?

[bitcharmer]

> That's because it is a tiny fix

And this is how I know you're not a professional programmer, because you naively assume that finding the root cause is zero work. Most of the time it's debugging and testing that takes almost all the time involved in a fix.